Preamble.
In the 1970s, Julio Presas was the guitarist for the band Materia Gris, whose "Ohperra vida de Beto" album is regarded as the very first Rock Opera created in Argentina. "Amanciendo en la cruz del sur" is the only solo album by Julio.

The Album.
Julio Preasas's "Amanciendo en la cruz del sur" is above all notable for a highly unique combination of such diverse musical and emotional aspects as: softness, beauty, light sorrow, virtuosity, complexity, inventiveness, and of course, originality. It seems to be marvelous, but this music is really both very touching and intricate. Furthermore, it is just filled with magic. Having said all of this in the very beginning of the review, I don't even know whether there is an insistent need to describe the contents of this diamond in further detail. If I were in your shoes dear readers, having read these lines, I would immediately click on a link below to check the CD out. (If you trust my opinion, of course.) Nevertheless, I think I have to continue expressing my thoughts on the hero of this review - a real, yet, unsung hero of raging battles on the Prog-front line at the end of the 1970s. Well, the best general stylistic definition of this album would probably be the next: Classical Music performed by dints of a guitar-based Art-Rock with elements of Symphonic Art-Rock. To be more precise, all of the tracks here are about Classical Music, though among themselves, they differ by some aspects. On the album, Julio plays a bass, electric, semi-acoustic, and acoustic guitar, though the latter is the only instrument, the parts of which are present on each of the tracks here (not counting bonus tracks). The second and the eighth compositions consist exclusively of solos and passages of acoustic guitar and solos of semi-acoustic guitar, and varied interplay between them are not only diverse and beautiful, but are also in the state of a constant development. The other four pieces on the album (tracks 1, 4, 7, & 10) were performed without any percussion instruments, though these, apart from the parts of acoustic and semi-acoustic guitars, feature also the solos of bass, those of synthesizer, and passages of piano. Seven out of eight of the remaining tracks (3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, & 13) were performed with all of the instruments that are listed above. Thus, these are the brightest representatives of the album's predominant stylistics, which, as I've mentioned already, represents Classical Music performed by dints of a guitar-based Art-Rock with elements of Symphonic Art-Rock. Though on each of the said tracks, there also are the arrangements that are about a pure Symphonic Progressive. One of them, Las suaves palabras (9), is the only song on the album. It's quite strange, but Julio sings it in English. A little of the female vocalizes are present on tracks 3, 6, & 7. Finally, the spacey Apertura (12) is the only track on the album that is completely out of its unified stylistics.

Summary.
Please just reread the first several lines in the previous paragraph.